ATLANTA, GA—Tony Finau didn’t get the pot of gold in the pressure-packed, season-ending Tour Championship at East Lake GC on Sunday. But there was a silver lining to the most successful season of his career—a second appearance in the Presidents Cup.
Finau, whose 64 proved the lowest score Sunday, actually locked up the sixth spot on the team following the BMW Championship two weekends ago. His free-wheeling, ninth-place finish (-15) at East Lake was six shots behind winner Rory McIlroy, who shot a final-round four-under-par 66 to chase down World No. 1 Scottie Scheffler and claim the whopping $18 million check awarded the FedEx Cup champ.
Finau earned a not-too-paltry $1,250,000 and now has an opportunity to redeem himself after a disappointing (0-3-1) showing in the 2019 Presidents Cup. This year’s event is scheduled September 20-25 at Quail Hollow GC in Charlotte, N.C.
Finau finished about an hour-and-a-half before the fireworks down the stretch between the final twosome of McIlroy and Scheffler. The latter began the final-round with a six-stroke lead over McIlroy and Xander Schauffele. South Korean Sungjae Im and defending FedEx Cup champ Patrick Cantlay were another shot back.
Scheffler’s struggles began with a bogey on the difficult first hole. He made two more bogeys before making his only birdie of the final round on the par-4 eighth hole. McIlroy also bogeyed No. 1 but notched four birdies in a five-hole stretch in a front-nine 32 to close the gap to one stroke.
McIlroy birdied the short par-4 12th hole to draw even with Scheffler, then surrendered the lead two holes later with a sloppy bogey. He knocked in a hard-breaking long putt on the par-3 15th punctuated by a fist pump to secure a share of the lead again.
However, the drama was not over. Im birdied 15 and 17 to get in the mix at 20-under, but an errant second shot on the par-5 18th yielded only a par to dash his hopes.
Meanwhile, McIlroy leaned heavily on a much-improved short game plus some timely good fortune in closing out the win. Case in point: McIlroy’s approach shot on the par-4 16th hole found the gnarly rough to the left of the green from which he faced a near-impossible up-and-down. Had his runaway chip shot not been slowed by the flagstick the ball might still be rolling. Instead it caromed only six feet past the hole. McIlroy holed the par putt and needed just a pedestrian par at the last to secure win becoming the first player to capture three FedEx Cups.
“Honestly, I wasn’t giving myself much of a chance teeing off today,’’ McIlroy said. “I thought that if I could get within three shots going into the back nine I’d have a chance. Once I got to the back nine and we were tied, it’s a different mindset. It’s a credit to my resilience…Incredible week. It’s really cool to do something in golf that no one’s ever done before.’’
Scheffler can take solace in having the most wins (four) on tour this season. However, the one that got away will sting the Masters champ for a long time.
“Scottie’s an incredible player and a better person,’’ McIlroy said. “He’ll win some FedEx Cups. He is the Player of the Year for sure.’’
Pete McDaniel is a veteran golf writer and best-selling author. His blogs and books are available at petemcdaniel.com. Comments on this topic may be emailed directly to Pete at gdmcd@aol.com or visit his Facebook page.
